


Electric Sheep

by vacant houses (the_lost_robot)



Category: Chronicles of Riddick Series, Riddick (2013), Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: AU like crazy woah, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, And plottage happened somehow, Chances are, Don't ask me where I'm going with this thing, Gen, I don't know, I swear there's a plot somewhere, It really shouldn't have, Lotta snark, Snark, Then these guys started arguing, Unlikely xover is unlikely
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 22:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_lost_robot/pseuds/vacant%20houses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a tale of a man, his pet dog and...his unwanted robot companion.<br/>Or: the one where Jazz is stuck on a bizarre planet with the strangest organic he has ever met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Setting Up The Stage

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the 2013 Riddick movie but crazily AU for both fandoms. For Transformers, it has influences of the 2007 movie but doesn't follow any of the events.

** Electric Sheep **

 

It was a ship.

Riddick pushed his goggles back, rested one foot on the large rock in front of him and blinked.

It didn't disappear.

He tilted his head at his dog and raised an eyebrow. "Good find."

Then he cranked his head back out of the hole and took a few steps back and re-evaluated the situation.

"Hope you've got a way of getting it out there. Because that bird is _stuck._ "

 

Riddick didn't recognize the make of the ship, it didn't resemble anything he'd ever seen but he figured the thing had been buried in the cliff face for a really long time. It had probably been made during the early days of space-flight, hence the colossal size of the thing, to lug massive engines around that were capable of escaping atmosphere. The size of it, it probably was a colony ship, all set-up to claim a patch of humanity in the big black.

The fact it was here, inserted in a cliff, didn't spell anything good for its past and current flight capabilities. But, at the very least, Riddick figured he'd be able to scavenge something useful. A colony ship would have a pool of its own vehicles and that would make getting around on this no-name planet a lot easier.

Of course, that depended on whether it was worth the effort. The dog had found the ship whilst they were following a herd of what passed for this planet's herbivores. The canine had been pretty interested in a set of rocks at the base of the cliffs and wouldn't budge until Riddick had shifted enough aside to get a look inside. There were still a whole cliff-face of rocks to move and there was always the possibility of setting off a fatal avalanche.

All in all, he wasn't sure it was worth it.

Then again, it wasn’t like he had anything else to do.

So digging it was.

A week's work and he'd enlarged the original hole enough that he was able to get a better view of the craft. He still didn't understand it though, the scale it seemed to have been built for was a hell of a lot larger than human. At this point however, the herd they'd been following across the plains began to move again and he halted the work. Having a reliable and good food source rated a lot higher on his priorities than possible death-trap with potentially interesting pay-off.

It was a month later when the herd swung close enough that Riddick could pick up the slack again.

 

"A positive sign," Riddick carefully examined the dish protruding out of the hole he'd made. It looked like a solar panel, a big one, so some part of the ship must have eventually activated simply by exposing the ship to some light. Pretty clever design too, mobile panels that could move to gather more to continue powering up the ship. He wasn't actually sure how it had managed to get fit through the hole though. Some sort of compacting and unfolding mechanism? It gave him some hope that most of the ship was intact and functional.

"Don't give me that look," he scolded the dog. He could feel the animal's scepticism as he ducked under the dish then he carefully jumped down into the crash site. As he straightened, he pushed his goggles back to bring the dim cave into focus. "You found it, you bought it."

The dog whined anxiously but followed him in. Riddick figured that if the cliff hadn't come crashing down while they were gone, that meant it was somewhat stable.

Hopefully.

He climbed carefully over rocks and boulders, balancing on them to make his way over to the ship. Carefully, he reached out and placed one hand on the metal. It was cold to the touch, the last time its engines were alive had been eons ago, there was no residual hum to tell him that part of the ship was active. But...he glanced back at the dish, the ship still was functional . Was working even though he couldn't...

There. There was something there, he could feel it. One vibrant, shimmering presence amidst a whole multitude of echoes. He'd always been sensitive to the living energies every creature carried but ever since Shirah had awoken that thing underneath his skin, his awareness had skyrocketed.

Riddick moved up along the side of the ship, tracking that life-pulse with the tips of his fingers. It wasn't like anything he'd ever felt before and that, more than anything, made him start to reconsider his initial impressions of the ship. He placed both palms on it and leant his full weight on it, eyes shut as he concentrated on his other senses. The metal-he didn't recognize the alloys. The scale and the architecture, neither suggested human construction or origin.

But who'd built such a thing? He'd never heard of anything like this before. Then again, he'd never heard of the Necromongers and Furya until  Toombs had tracked him down to the UV system. The big black was just a pool of infinite possibility after all.

He opened his eyes and began to search for an opening, climbing up and leaving one anxious dog behind. The ship had actually come through the crash relatively intact. There were no gaping gaps, like the way the Hunter Gratnzer had been disemboweled. In fact…

The ship looked remarkable whole and undamaged despite carving a large hole in the face of the planet. The plates that made up its outer surface were scratched, no doubt about that, but he couldn't see any metal shorn off like it was missing comms or sensors. This just added to his suspicion that the ship's builders were never human.

He dropped to the ground and the dog was immediately by his side. "Easy there," he said, resting one hand on the canine's head. Riddick's silver eyes gave the ship one last sweep, confirming what he'd already known since he'd felt that life-pulse.

"Come on boy. It'll wake up soon but only when it's ready."

 

_Current damage: significant._

_Energon levels: critical._

_-Energon levels: critical.-_

_-Emergency reserves: 2 breems. Solar source located outside Ark-9. External environment: no hostilities detected. Autobot Jazz should relocate to external solar energy source.-_

Jazz onlined in a hurry, optics flicking on to the darkened ceiling of the Ark's medbay. His optics immediately cycled to the appropriate settings so he could see better. He glanced around, quickly taking in his situation. He was seated on a med-berth that had just drained most of the ship's reserves to revive him. Jazz disconnected the energon line to his port and rose unsteadily to his pedes. His first step was a stagger as his equilibrium sensors fed him conflicting information. Precious astroseconds slipped past as he fought to determine which way was up. Eventually, he spun off a patch to temporarily fix the problem in his gravometric sensors and managed to make it to the door.

_Emergency reserves: 1.5 breems_

Now to find an exit. It took a moment longer than he liked for Jazz to recall the schematics of the Ark but worrying about his frame's current state would have to come later. The walk out was short but it did serve to highlight the last things he could recall before he'd offlined.

A battle. The Decepticons. The Ark-9 damaged and spinning out of control. A random planet in the middle of Primus knows where.

The crash.

And then...nothing.

He stumbled down the exit ramp into a dark cave. Light shone in from a hole and he made his way over. The Ark had extended a solar dish out through the hole, which explained how the ship had built up enough of its reserves to revive him.  Carefully, Jazz shifted some rocks out of the way, enlarging the hole enough so that he could squeeze out from underneath.

Sunshine warming his plates was a welcome feeling. It would take a long while to bring up his levels up and even longer still to kickstart his auto-repair. But for now, it was enough that he was online and aware.

_Emergency reserves: recharging._

He pinged the Ark's computer a query. He'd sensed no spark signatures on his way out but if the rest of the crew were in as deep a stasis as he'd been, there was a chance that some were still alive.

_-Unable to verify query.-_

Jazz very deliberately decided not to worry that he might be the only survivor from the crash. The Ark barely had enough power left and its internal sensors were probably down.

He ran a scan on the surrounding area, confirming the Ark's assessment of the place. Jazz could detect a few organic lifeforms but nothing big enough to concern him. He was the only Cybertronian in sensor range, a fact that was as comforting as it was unsettling.

Jazz moved down along the clifface and then climbed up to a position that guarded his back. He sat himself down on a boulder, exposing as much of himself as he dared to the sun, then shut himself down to recharge.

 

Riddick could honestly say he wasn't expecting the giant robot when he returned to the crash site a month and a half later. Both he and the dog went still as soon as the thing came into view. Riddick turned his chin up as he took in the situation. The robot was perched up in a defensible position a few hundred meters away from the cave. That solar dish was still poking out of the hole. Evidently, the ship had charged up enough juice to activate the robot. An automatic defense drone? It seemed likely. He'd seen a number in his time, stolen a few of them too and there was no mistaking the look even if it was an alien robot. That thing had been constructed with combat in mind.

He frowned. It's presence out here also meant that the front door to the ship could be open now. Of course, getting there would require sneaking past the drone. It didn't look to be in the best condition, its armor was mangled in some places, completely shredded in others. But that canon was pretty damn fucking huge. All it needed to do was got one shot in with whatever ammo it was loaded with and it was all over.

Riddick leant down and picked up a few rocks. Then he moved up to the cliff wall and settled behind some nice big boulders. He hurled a rock over it, aimed somewhere close to the robot's left.

It didn't twitch.

The Furyan contemplated the remaining rock in his outstretched arm. The robot was undoubtedly active. It had got itself up in the cliff-face after all. But. It was powering itself with solar energy.

Hidden behind his goggles, Riddick's eyes narrowed to slits.

"Guess we'll have to come back later."

 

Jazz hadn't moved for about a decacyle.

With conserving energy his main priority, there hadn't been a need to move. Instead, he'd turned his processor to diagnosing all his systems, checking that everything was working whilst his self repair had set away at fixing his frame. He'd received the damage during the battle with the Decepticon and had been relegated to the medbay long enough that their medic had repaired most of the life threatening damage. Unfortunately, there was still plenty that required work, both physically and in his processor.

There was file corruption to deal with from his extended stay in emergency stasis. Both Jazz and the Ark had no idea how long it had been since the crash but it certainly been a very long time. Had Jazz the mind for it, he could have tried working something out by watching the stars and comparing it with the start charts before the crash. However he'd been occupied with patching most of his systems to get him into working order. His weapons had been his main priority and he was pleased that he'd managed to get his left canon working.

He was less pleased that he was unable to transform it back into a hand. But, at the very least, he wasn't defenseless. He could target, just barely though but it was enough.

All in all, it wasn't actually the worst situation he'd been in.

But it was coming pretty close.

The Ark was stocked with a few portable energon converters, he'd accessed the ship's manifest and checked it. The section they were in though had lost power and would require re-wiring before he could get access it, according to the ship's computers. The convertors would be useful, they were meant for transforming energy sources into energon with high efficiency, unlike the few solar nannites embedded into his armor plates. Until he was certain he could operate his hands effectively however, the convertors would remain out of reach. There was no point attempting repair work that could potentially damage the ship even more...unless his self repair was unable to correct the malfunctions in his hands.  Most of their medical supplies had been used up prior to the crash though...scavenging was always an alternative.

He just didn't want it to be. He'd much rather wait out here a ridiculously long time, bringing up his energy levels so that his self-repair could slowly fix his frame than head inside and confirm that the rest of the crew was dead. The Ark had gathered enough energy to bring online another mech.

It hadn't.

He tried not to think about that too.

Something was caught on the edge of his motion trackers. At first, he paid it no heed, plenty of the native organics had come wandered close since he'd set himself up here. Instead he focused on chasing down a line of disobedient code, his chronometer was off by a decimal…

Several groons later, it happened again and his long term memory flagged a match on the pattern his motion trackers had picked up. Jazz mentally froze at the recognition.

_Human._

He cast his sensors open, trying to locate the sentient. This planet didn't have any sentient life, he could recall the information their frantic scans had picked up moments before the Ark had crashed.

So, what was a human doing here...?

Well, that was a question Jazz couldn't wait to hear an answer. Not to mention, defragging his processor was getting more than a little _boring_.

He delved into his linguistics files, digging around until he came upon a copy of 21st century English and a few other languages.

Jazz's optics turned on and he stood up.

Time to say hello.

 

Riddick had severely underestimated the robot's sensor range. Not that the darkness would have impeded its ability to detect him but he'd been hoping the lack of light would have shut down most of its processes to conserve energy. He was a few hillsides away when the thing suddenly stood up and turned in his direction without hesitation. It started walking and Riddick had a moment's indecision. Flee and hope that the thing ran out of charge before it caught him. Or stay here and wait to see what it would do. If he was inside its sensor range and it was hostile, it would have shot him from where it had been perched up in the cliff. That it hadn't was a positive sign.

Riddick hadn't lived this long by being the trusting sort.

He turned and ran.

 

 _Really_ , Jazz should have figured that would have happened. As it was, he didn't fancy his chances of setting after the human. He didn't quite trust his legs yet and his alt-form was completely out of the question. He should have waited for it to get closer before making a move. But it had just been so long and Jazz had never been one to sit back when there was socializing to be done.

"Hey, wait!" he called out before recalling that humans had pitifully limited hearing. He watched as the human paused for half a moment -perhaps it had heard him somehow- then it disappeared quickly out of sensor range. Jazz was actually rather surprised at the speed it had moved at, it didn't exactly fall within recorded human parameters, especially at night. Synthetic augmentation, microevolution, maybe?

Either suggested a significant time had past since he'd last seen Earth. Long enough for them to develop faster than light travel to get out all the way here. That technology had been several hundreds of years into their future, unless severe interference by a technologically advance race - _Cybertronian_ , a deeply suspicious part of his processor suggested- had boosted their development.

Jazz settled back down again, stretching out a leg out in front of him. He checked his energy levels, then unsubspaced a repair kit he always carried around with him. It was not ideal, using the little fuel he had to make manual repairs instead of conserving it for later. But he did not know if there were more humans and from what he could he recall, they rarely travelled alone.

And they knew how to kill mechs.


	2. Assembling The Players

Riddick had been in a lot of crazy situations in his life and figured he was at the stage where little could genuinely surprise him.

Though, he did have to admit, the stalemate with the big robot guarding the ship? New and kinda weird. He'd slink along the hillsides, the dog by his side, as he tried to figure out an approach that wouldn't set the thing off. It never moved again from its spot in the distance but Riddick figured it had to be aware of him. Occasionally, he would catch movements from its arms, it was repairing itself.

All in all, situation was fucked.

So he withdrew.

Headed out across the plains and decided to forget about the ship. So long as the giant robot didn't come after him everything would be good.

_…so of course, the giant robot had to come after him._

 

The human was gone.

It hadn't shown up on the edge of Jazz's sensor range for about a decacycle and the Autobot was getting kinda worried about it now. It seemed to be alone, which was good for Jazz. But he'd observed plenty of other organics on this planet that could prove to be a threat to the human. Which wasn't really all that good for the lone sentient.

So when the message finally pinged against his processor, he was ready to start searching.

_Energy levels: 43.6%_

_Repairs completed: Left canon available_

_Right canon available._

_Long range comm systems available._

_Full dexterity and mobility restored to left hand._

_Full dexterity and mobility restored to right hand._

_..._

_..._

And, at the very end of a long list of repairs, there was:

_Alt-mode now available._

First though...there were things he needed to do. He finally gave in and went back into the Ark. It had been a small crew and by the time they'd crashed, maybe only six of the original fifteen had definitely been alive. He gathered up the frames and dragged them into the med-bay. It was possible that some were still recoverable but if so then they were so deeply into stasis, hanging on a narrow point between life and death that their sparks could not be detected by Jazz or the Ark's damaged spark scanners. Cybertronians were hardy, it took a lot to put them down permanently and even with near fatal damage, they could survive extended periods of time in stasis.

His comrades could be in such a state, so deep into stasis that it'd require a med-bot to get them out. And Jazz knew his way around frames -specially his own- knew how to push beyond the limits most mechs didn't know they had, but he knew fiddling around with these ones could push them beyond all recovery. If he managed to make his way back to the Autobot forces and found a medic…then, maybe they would have a chance. But right now, he didn't have enough data, didn't know enough about the situation to make a judgement call. He could be ages away from the closest Autobot forces and the longer he waited, the higher the chance that they might never awake. So, to act now  and try to repair them himself or wait and hope to find a medic...he needed more information about the situation.

But good, skilled medics were in short supply from what he could last recall. Theirs had been killed soon after he'd completed his preliminary repairs onto Jazz's frame.

With an unhappy grimace, he started to hook the frames he hoped were in deep stasis up to the med-berths. A slow influx of energy couldn't hurt them, it would stabilize them indefinitely until he made the decision.

Next came setting up the convertors. It took a few orns of delicate rewiring, but he finally got power routed to the doors of the cargo holds. He dragged out the convertors and set them up outside the Ark. From the cargo holds supplies, he was also able to rig up a connection to the ship. It would take time, but eventually there would be enough power to get the Ark running.

As for flying...well.

He wasn't _that_ optimistic.

And it could have been his imagination or not, but it was entirely possible the Ark computers had actually scoffed at him when he'd requested a diagnostic. 

Jazz finished up and surveyed his work, checking over the accessible portions of the ship for any threatening damage and then checking to see if the ship's consignment was still secure, which it was fortunately. They'd lost a lot of lives on the last mission recovering the valuable cargo from Decepticon forces and he was pleased to see it hadn't been for nothing.

The convertors and the Ark would be fine to leave unattended. The Ark would monitor the med-bay for him and alert him to any changes in the offline frames. Now, it was time to explore the planet, find the human and hopefully find out more information about the world he was stuck on and how fragged he really was. If he was really lucky, maybe he wasn't all that far away from civilization and would be able to figure out a way to get off-planet. Then again, neither he or the Ark had been able to detect any communication signals that indicated a technologically advance society.

Except, there was the lone human. It had to come from somewhere.

He set off in the direction he'd last picked the human up on his motion trackers.

 

The dog heard it coming long before Riddick did. They had been travelling across the plains, Riddick dragging a travois behind him when the animal started barking at him. Barking and pacing back and forth in the direction behind them.

Riddick stopped immediately. "Something coming, huh?" He glanced down in bemusement before scanning the hills back the way they had came. He couldn't see a thing but he didn't doubt the dog had keener senses than he did. He didn't like the situation, they were out in the open, with no cover in sight.  Fight or flight warred within him for a moment, his lips pursing before he came to a decision and relented.

He dropped the travois, scavenging it for a few homemade knives, a water skin and a few slices of meat. The bulk of his kill and their dinner for the next couple of nights, they abandoned and set across the plains at a run. There were a few caves a couple of kilometers north where he'd made camp on occasion.

Then, he heard it, the unexpected sound of a high performance engine. That almost brought him up short and cost him a few precious seconds before adrenaline kicked in and gave him a fresh burst of speed. The dog kept pace with him easily and Riddick envied him for his speed. Whatever their pursuer was, Riddick had no intentions of facing it unless it was on his own turf and rules.

Riddick heard it when the vehicle changed direction, it had found the travois and now it was undoubtedly heading towards them. The caves were still several kilometers off and he slid to a stop. They weren't going to make it and would have to stand their ground. Riddick surveyed the uneven terrain for an advantage but there were no hiding places in sight.

The engine thrummed in the distance.

Riddick swore.

 

Jazz was increasingly convinced that there was no sentient life on this planet as he swept across the planet in his hovercar altmode. Sure, there were organics, an interesting variety of them but no signs that any of it had made it to the free will and intelligent thinking stage. The only thing he had going for him was a sensor scan he was beginning to believe was the result of a glitch and he'd imagined the whole thing.

Then he found the travois. Low key tech but there was no mistaking the look of primitive human made construction. There was the carcass of a dead organic on top of it and from the freshness of the heat scans, he figured he'd just chased off the human away from his meal. Jazz regretted the inconvenience but all would be explained soon. He paused momentarily as he tried to decide what to do with the travois. From what he could recall of humans, offering food could be construed as a peace offering. Unfortunately, access to his subspace was locked, fixing the emitter was something he hadn't got around to doing.  He left the carcass there, uncertain how long it would remain unattended in these wilderness.

A fresh set of scans revealed the path the human had taken, a light trace of pheromones in the air, a track left in the grass. Jazz altered his course and set off again.

It didn't take long to catch up, he came over a rise and the human and an organic that resembled an earth canine were waiting for him. Jazz stopped immediately at what he thought was a safe distance away that wouldn't spook the organics.

He waited a moment to let them calm down at his sudden appearance, monitoring their vital signs. The man's hands never strayed from their position on his crude weapon but when they reached a state he thought was reasonable for the situation, he shifted through the information he had on humans and decided upon an appropriate greeting.

Of course, he couldn't resist.

"Greetings Earthling!" Jazz said. "I come in peace. Take me to your leader."

The human shifted at his voice but gave no recognition at his voice. Jazz tried again. After several failed responses in English, he switched to French, then Chinese, then through his entire database of human languages.

None provoked a response, the human kept suspicious watch on him and unobtrusively tried to back away. Jazz scuttled forward, maintaining the distance between them and noted the spike in the human's hormonal system. He moved back a bit as he pondered the communication failure. Just how long had it been since he'd left Earth? It would seem that enough time had passed that his language files were out of date.

Well. This was going to be problematic.

 

The hovercar spoke the most fucked up version of English he'd ever heard and he'd been grown up in the penal system. Riddick had heard some truly mangled forms of the language but this vehicle took first prize, not only for English but a few others Riddick had picked up over time. He flat out did not understand the car and that, in itself, was quite an achievement. Learning to recognize what some asshole psychopath was muttering right off the bat was an invaluable survival skill in slams across the galaxy.

As things stood, there were only a few words he'd recognized, not enough to know what the car was on about. Maybe its processor was as damaged as its exterior and it was glitching. Riddick wasn't entirely certain but he was pretty sure that this was the defense drone that had been guarding the ship, only it had shifted shape into the most interesting hovercar he'd ever seen. Which made him revise his initial impression of the ship, if the robot knew English, then maybe the ship had human origins somewhere along the line. A forgotten culture hidden somewhere out in the big black, just like the Necromongers. It wasn't too far out there, it could have even been from a divergent line of Necromonger faith, they had the tech for it.

But-no.

No. The tech was possible. But the feel the ship had given him, that intangible measure he'd taken away from it had formed a definitive impression on his mind, it was not human. It was alien.

Maybe the ship made contact with humans before it crashed, a long time ago. He wasn't all that informed on history, a lot of things had slipped through his education but the basic necessities he needed to know to keep himself alive. A chance encounter with an alien race that occurred centuries ago? Not something that would get discussed a lot back in the slam, except by the well-education, the paranoid and the delusional and no one listened to them.

It was however slightly reassuring that the thing was trying to communicate instead of attacking him immediately. Unless it was trying to inform that he'd committed a transgression against its programming and it was about to terminate him.

Riddick decided to back away slowly. The hovercar immediately moved forward then backed away just as quickly. Riddick was acutely aware of just how little effort it would take for the vehicle to reduce him to a red mess on the ground. Just how to take it down if it went for him….? There were a few ragged holes punched in the outer body. Maybe he could get at some inner wires with his smaller knives. Provided he could dodge the thing and that his knives didn't break on it…

The car backed up a bit further then it exploded into a flurry of parts, shifting and moving as the vehicle took a vaguely humanoid shape. Riddick hadn't been expecting that, he watched as pieces moved. The process wasn't fast, Riddick suspected this was due to the damage the hovercar had taken...

He didn't hesitate, a knife slid into his hand and he threw it straight into the shifting mass of parts. Then he threw himself backwards and ran.

 

Holy fragging Primus.

 _That_ was a bad move.

Body language, Jazz had been thinking, body language. He could mimic human body language to some extent in his root mode and maybe establish some sort of basic level of communication. Or he could try his hand at written communication, that normally took longer to drift. He really just needed to get the human talking long enough to update his files and account for the language drift. So he'd backed up and then transformed. No problem, he'd thought. That would cause no problems. The human was small and lacked high tech weapons. He pretty much sat on the bottom of Jazz's threat list. If anything, the amount of agitation and fear that was going through him would keep the human still, Jazz figured.

And then the human had thrown a knife right at him midst transformation, a move that had outright stunned him with its craziness. The man was either incredibly lucky or he knew what he was going for because it had struck an energon line. Hadn't slice it, thank Primus no, but Jazz had immediately halted the transformation, didn't dare risking forcing the knife deeper, somewhere it could do actual damage. If he'd had ready access to a medic, he wouldn't have though twice about it, would have continued on, secure in the knowledge that someone would be around afterward to pick things out from underneath his armor and fix the rest of himself up. He'd taken searing plasma blasts and worse mid transformation during battlefields after all.

But right now, there were no medics, no second chances if he fragged things up. Couldn't afford to take the risks, couldn't take any extra damage when he wasn't even in top condition.

The human had made a break for it. Jazz let him go, focusing on himself. He ran several scans to find out where the weapon was exactly and then began the slow, arduous task of transformation, shifting parts to and from his root mode to his alt, all in a careful effort to remove the knife from his internals.

When it was done, he straightened up, focusing on the direction the human had disappeared to. He hadn't got far, Jazz would catch up quickly in his alt mode. Grimly, he transformed and then set off after the human.

The human had just moved up several levels on his threat list.

 

Pissing off the hovercar had probably been a bad move.

The thing came hurtling after him quicker than he'd expected. Riddick had jumped out of the thing's way, and ended up be launched further than he thought he would when the vehicle turned an anti-grav booster in his direction.  This time, when it changed, it did so quickly. He was still recovering from the fall and then he wasn't facing a hovercar. It was the big robot from before and its metal face -which was surprisingly emotive- looked deeply unhappy.

The robot had pointed a finger at him. Riddick had stared back, entirely unimpressed as it again tried and failed to speak English.

He got the impression it was scolding him.

 

"That was so not cool," Jazz glared at the human. "So not cool at all. The frag you do that for?"

He had to give him credit, the human had seen a weak spot and gone for it. It was just deeply frustrating that violence still appeared to be an engrained response to humans, because it meant that it was going to take a long time to establish communication with the man. Every move Jazz made would be analyzed and cross-examined for suspicious motives until the human was satisfied that he meant no harm.

From Jazz could recall of the species, that process sometimes never finished.

With an annoyed exvent, Jazz pointed a finger at the human. "What's your name?" he asked. After getting no response, he pointed at himself. "Jazz. Jazz. Jaaaazzzzz."

And now to see if the humans written language had changed as much as their spoken language.

 

When the robot pointed its finger back at him, Riddick had already figured out what the robot wanted. "Johns," he grunted shortly. He would have preferred not to have given it a name at all but the robot, or _Jazz_ , as it called itself, had already proven that it would not be trifled with and was rather forgiving, considering Riddick had stuck a knife in its insides. Most people tended to get rather upset about that. And then they died.

As it was, the thing had been buried underneath the planet's skin for so long that it would be impossible for it to know Riddick's name but he wasn't going to give away information that could come back to bite him in the ass later.

Then the robot crouched down, dragging its long fingers in the dirt. _Hello_ , it scrawled in massive letters. _Nod if you can read this._

Riddick blinked in surprise at the coherency. From the robot's actions up until this point, he was certain it had some major glitches in its system.  The spelling was a bit off and the shape of the letters were kind of weird but no matter, it was recognizable. He looked up at it and gave it a sharp nod.

 

So he had a name -false, probably- and a way of communicating. That was good. First step in the right direction. But he needed to get the human talking so that he could update his language banks.  First things first though, those meant assurances to get the human to trust him.

 _I come in peace,_ Jazz couldn't resist scrawling. Then _, I mean no harm to you. My people have never sought to harm the human race._

The human peered intently over his words, but made no response. The goggled face remained intently focused on him, watching him cautiously for any sudden moves. Jazz ran a discrete scan over the organic, he wasn't certain how much time had passed since he'd last seen Earth but there had to been some changes within the species. He was half expecting to find cybernetic enhancements, surely the contact between Cybertronians and humanity had to have had some impact on the species but was surprised to find that Johns seemed to match the records he had.

_I don't know how long I've been buried on this planet but I would appreciate anything you have to tell me about it._

Johns slowly read over the words but when he reached the end of them, he made a scoffing sound with a shake of his head. Jazz's spark sunk at the refusal. Persuading the organic would be difficult, humans did not respond to things in a manner he could confidently predict. The way that goggled face was looking at him now, careful consideration mixed with pure cunning, Jazz had a feeling Johns was challenging him. Testing his claim that he meant no harm.

….frag.

Johns took one defiant step back and Jazz did not react. The human took another step backwards, the canine creature following his footsteps. Calculations spun quickly though Jazz's processor before he came to a snap-decision. He crouched down in the dirt again.

_There are many hazardous lifeforms on this planet. Allow me to accompany you and help you._

Writing that had brought the human a little bit closer again, Johns peered cautiously at the message. Then, his head snapped up and stared -or Jazz assumed, it was hard to tell with those goggles- straight at the Cybertronian. He waited for the human to decide.

 

The giant robot wanted to follow him.

Riddick glanced down at the words, then back up at the enormous machine. The choice loomed ominously over him.

On one hand, a giant robot would be useful for protection and as a means of getting around. It also meant possible access to the mystery ship.

On the other hand, he didn't know anything about it. Who built it, where it was from. It wasn't human-made, the words it had scrawled had confirmed an alien origin. It had no hard coded programming to protect and serve humans, therefore this offer sprang from some indecipherable alien motive. Evidently, it had some self-awareness, it had a name and it referred to itself as I. That made Riddick wonder just how much it was capable of, could the robot lie? Could it plot? 

On the other, other hand, it had a fucking huge gun that could reduce him to a smear on the ground. Riddick didn't know what it would take to prompt the robot into using that on him but he wasn't about to risk it.

He nodded reluctantly.

It seemed to take that as permission, it backed away from him quickly. Riddick watched it in confusion but it all became clear when the robot -Jazz- changed back into a hover vehicle. Jazz had been getting out of his range.

A very thin smile graced Riddick's face.

Good. Apparently, he was still able to strike fear -or caution at the very least- into giant alien robots.

"Well boy," he addressed the canine companion by his side. "Looks like we've picked a stray."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not a linguistics student and have very little idea of about language drift. When I looked it up online, my impression is that there are no hard and fast rules about it.


	3. Building Bridges

The thing about having a giant robot following someone around is that the giant robot is rather obvious.

And no, turning into a hovercar did not improve the giant robot's stealthiness on a planet where hovercars had not been invented yet.

"This isn't going to work," Riddick blandly informed the vehicle. "I need to eat, we-" he gestured to the dog staring mournfully at the fleeing herbivores, "need to eat. You, on the other hand, do not. So stop trying to help when we go hunting."

The hover vehicle came to a stop and wavered in front of him uncertainly. It had taken to following him at a distance, occasionally wandering off on its own for a couple of hours to go explore but always  returning at a breakneck speed. Riddick had tried taking opportunity of the robot's absence to go hunting but often with little success. It was always just a little too close that the local wildlife was already unsettled or the robot's return would frighten them off.

Jazz backed up and transformed, then the robot crouched down and scrawled, _Say what?_

Riddick sighed before responding. He'd picked up a large stick at some point specifically so he could communicate with his new and unwanted companion. The robot had assured him it would be capable of learning his language if he spoke aloud but its progress had been slow. It was probably permanently glitched somewhere and either hadn't or couldn't realise it or the robot just wouldn't admit it to him. It didn't help that Riddick had always been a man of few words and he was in no hurry to be required to engage in verbal conversation again. The stick made things easier and it forced their conversations to be short and concise. _We were hunting._

 _Is there a problem?_ Jazz inquired curiously.

 _Yes,_ Riddick wrote back. _You._

_What did I do?_

The human turned and looked very deliberately in the direction of the quickly disappearing herd. _You scared them away._

Jazz paused and then looked up to follow Riddick's line of sight. _Oh,_ he wrote. _I'm sorry?_

_Go away._

The robot seemed taken aback by the request. _What if you get hurt?_

Riddick pointed the stick at his last statement. The robot so far had proven itself true to its word, it had made no threatening or harmful moves to him. Riddick still didn't trust it but from what he'd observed of it, it seemed truly concerned about his own well-being. Which made him confident that he could make demands and requests from it and not get flattened or vaporised in response.

He just couldn't get it to go away and stay away permanently.

 _Fine._ With something that approximated a huff, the robot transformed and settled lowly on the ground, its light flicking off in an almost sulkily manner.

Riddick stared at it suspiciously, almost daring it to move. Defiantly, even the engine turned off and the vehicle was completely still and silent.

Finally.

 

Jazz didn't think that it was possible for the universe to contain an individual as paranoid as Red Alert. But there he was, proving all of Jazz's assumptions wrong.

He wasn't jumpy like Red, but Jazz's human companion seem to regard everything with deep mistrust. Given that everything on this planet was designed to eat everything else, Jazz found he could not fault the human for his caution, it was impressive what he was capable of surviving with only the lowest tech he'd managed to make. But it made things difficult, the human was resolutely  uncommunicative and Jazz did not know how to approach him. The warfront had only briefly swept across Earth before moving on and he had had limited interactions with the species.

Occasionally, the thought to threaten the organic would arise. It was a desperate option, he was acutely aware of how easy it would be to accidentally kill Johns. And there was every chance that the human had no information that was actually useful to him. So, the long way it was, trying to befriend Johns until he felt comfortable interacting with him. It was just frustrating, he was stuck on an unknown world, no way to get off planet and no way to communicate back to Autobot command. There was very little he could do to improve the situation, which was the main reason he'd stuck with the organic.

He still didn't understand how the human had got here, but he was starting to develop a few theories. Exile on an uninhabited planet was a common punishment amongst space faring races. Jazz was pretty certain that he was dealing with such a case and he wandered what Johns had done to get himself dumped here. A violent war criminal? A deposed ruler? Whatever he was, he was still the second most paranoid slagger in the entire universe.

 

"The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

Riddick paused for a moment, then did a double take and stared at the robot. That had been English.  Clear, understandable English. "The fuck you on about?" he demanded suspiciously.

Jazz looked pleased. "I said that correctly, didn't I?"

"No," Riddick grunted in response and Jazz's face fell. "That made no godamm sense."

The robot perked up again. "You-but you can understand me, right?"

Riddick studied the robot carefully. "You're speaking English," he said eventually. "I can understand you. When did that happen?"

"I told you I'd learn it eventually," Jazz beamed at him. "Been recording your words, the few of them you actually bothered to speak. I was fortunate, I already had the basics of your language on file but there's been significant drift since I'd acquired it. Just needed to update it was all though you made it ten times harder than it needed to be, Mr I-don't-talk-at-all."

True to Riddick's nature, he decided to ignore that and turned his attention back to setting up camp. "Hey!" Jazz protested, slightly crestfallen.

"What?" Riddick grunted.

Jazz gestured to himself. "Aren't you, you know, curious? At all? About me?"

Riddick paused and swept his gaze over the robot from head to toe. Of course he was curious. Curious to know what was the quickest and easiest way to kill the damn thing if it turned on him. But that was the socially unacceptable curiosity, the sort that that one did not talk about. He could also see the damage the robot had taken, many other things had given it their best shot to kill it and had failed. He knew that there was undoubtedly a long and very interesting story behind it all and he did not want to know it.

That particular type of curiosity -personal curiosity- was a good way to getting a person involved in someone else's problems. It also normally led to death, pretty quickly too, in Riddick's experience.

So, the answer was no.

He was most definitely not curious.

"No," he answered shortly. "I'm not."

Jazz was taken aback by this answer. "Seriously? Not even a little?" the robot looked disappointed.

This time, Riddick went back to his work and tried to ignore the robot. He was not pleased to have this new form of communication opened between them. "That's a shame," Jazz spoke casually but he carefully settled himself away from the camping spot to give the human some space. "Because I'm really quite curious about you. For instance, I'm pretty sure that the name you gave me was incorrect. It's been a long time but I do know what comes up on my sensors when a human tries to lie."

Riddick scowled but tucked away that piece of information for future reference. "Call me Riddick," he called out, deciding that giving up that piece of information probably wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass.

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you get here?" Jazz asked and Riddick went still as memories of his betrayal went through his mind. Stupid. He'd been stupid and gotten careless. Well, he wasn't about to make the same mistake again.

The mech twisted around to watch the human as he picked up an increase in tension and stress. Mentally, Jazz put down the question as complicated and decided to come back to it later. "I'm guessing you do mind," he said when the silence dragged for too long.

Riddick continued to work and did not respond. Jazz exvented roughly and decided that they'd made enough progress for the day.

 

 

"Are you certain you don't want to-?"

"No."

"Really," Jazz wheedled. "It's just, we're travelling so-"

"No."

"But-"

"No."

"You sure you don't-"

"You certain there isn't a problem with your audio receptors?" Riddick ignored the robot sulkily trailing behind him.

"I'm just saying-"

"My answer has not changed."

"But really-"

Riddick stopped, a motion that would signal outright danger to any organism that was not fortunate enough to be made of metal and over the size of a house. Even so, Jazz fell silent, sensing that he'd reached the limit of the human's temper. He was also getting some interesting readings from the human's nervous system, activity that he'd never witnessed before in the species. Jazz couldn't make any sense of it, organic biology had never been particular subject of interest to him nor was his sensors specifically attuned to pick up such things. A medic would have been better equipped to understand what was going on.

The human whirled around and turned on him. "Why are you following me?" he demanded shortly.

"Your winning personality," Jazz replied promptly. "It's ever so charming and I just couldn't keep away."

The answer did not improve Riddick's temper. If anything, it made him even more annoyed. But, Jazz supposed, the human had no means of expressing his displeasure in a way that could affect him. He couldn't not outrun or outfight the Cybertronian and had no measure of control over him.

A frightening situation to be in for a being that seemed determined to remain in control of his surroundings, Jazz acknowledged. But there was not much he could to do to change their circumstances. He still needed information about the planet and the galactic state of affairs and Riddick remained his best source of information. He'd been unwillingly to breach the subject with the human. Prying, he could recognize, would not go down well with this one. The human had been content to keep their conversations short and non-personal. Jazz had in fact found Riddick's lack of curiosity about him quite interesting. Either he was familiar about Cybertronians or something that resembled them or he really couldn't care less about his new companion.

Riddick stared at him expectantly and Jazz relented. "Are we finally going to talk?" the mech asked. "Because, you've been doing your best to pretend I don't exist-"

"You're dangerous," Riddick cut in.

"Well, if I put my processor to it, yes," Jazz replied, disconcerted by the non-sequitor. "But not to you, you'd realized this by now. Besides, it's not like you're exactly harmless."

"True, but my enemies are my size and I can handle them." Riddick raised his goggled head and stared up at Jazz's visor. "What about you?"

"Aaah, you're going to have to help me out here," Jazz frowned in confusion. Maybe he'd got the translation software wrong or something. "What are you trying to get at exactly?"

"You've got enemies, big ones."

"Well, yeaaaah," Jazz hedged. Big was kind of an understatement. Jazz was big compared to Riddick but he was actually pretty short for his species. He idly scratched an audio horn as he tried to figure out what was going on in the human's head. Jazz hadn't brought up the war at all but it was pretty obvious that he'd been in a battle somewhere.

"I don't want them," Riddick said flatly.

Jazz shuttered his optics in complete confusion before he understood what the human was getting at. Riddick's firm disinterest stemmed from a strong sense of self-preservation. Because knowledge could be dangerous and Jazz's presence here with the Ark was something the Decepticons would be very interested in. But-

"Well, unless you know a way off-planet or how to get a signal out, we shouldn't have to worry about them," Jazz shrugged. "For the foreseeable future, we are stuck here.  Surely there's no harm in knowing a little bit about each other?"

The human gave him a mulish stare that conveyed his opinion quite clearly that yes, knowing something about each other would probably cause problems for someone down the line. Then, he slowly tilted his head to the side and came to a decision. "What are you?"

"Cybertronian. Mechanoid lifeform that comes from a lil' planet called Cybertron. We had contact with your species a few hundred of your planetary cycles ago-or so I last remember. Don't know how long I've been stuck in the dirt here," Jazz paused and his optics dimmed. He thought of his comrades and wondered if they were still alive. The war had been long and hard and he didn't have a lot of hope left. "You?"

A variety of answers came to mind and Ridick studied them each intently. He'd been the lord of the Necromongers in title only, he'd cared nothing for their creed or culture. And so long as a bounty remained on his head, then he was still an escaped convict, though he was not certain if one still existed on him. And as for other things...he grimaced as a memory played out in his head against his will, _"Jack thought of you like a brother," Imam had said._ He'd made lousy family and he'd gotten her killed because of it.

And for what it was worth, he was Furyan, whatever the fuck that meant.

"Human," he answered shortly. "Trying to survive on this shitty planet someone left me to die on."

"Do I get to ask you why?" Jazz asked. He'd spent enough time studying his companion that he aware that his previous question had disturbed Riddick on some level.

Riddick gave a shrug. "Does it matter?" he wasn’t sure whether he was asking Jazz or himself the question, then he ploughed on regardless. "Disappointed a few people. Didn't agree with their way of life or philosophy and they didn't like that."

They walked on in silence for a few minutes. Then, without a word or warning, Jazz folded up into his alt-mode. But when he did it, this time, he did not keep his distance from Riddick like he had done so previously. He coasted quietly by Riddick's side before the human drew to a step and tapped Jazz's door. The hovercar stopped and waited patiently for Riddick and his dog to climb inside.

Though Jazz had made the offer to give him a lift many times, Riddick had refused each and every one, regarding the offers with deep suspicion.  So this...they had made progress today.

It was something.

 

 

"This," Jazz announced proudly as they came over the last rise, "Is the Ark 9."

Riddick gave a grunt in acknowledgement. "Your parking sucks,"  he intoned.

"Hey," the mech protested in mock indignation. "I was so not online for the whole falling out of the sky whilst on fire thing. I'd like to see you do better when-" Jazz broke off as his last moments before waking up on the dust planet surfaced through his processor. Being dragged into the medbay after killing the Decepitcon boarding party. Fighting against the medic's instructions to offline, not when he was still needed to direct their comm traffic to keep the Decepticons misdirected. And, after that...nothing. Given that the crash had never been investigated, he must have been successful and they'd chased the decoy ship for Primus knows how long. "-When you've been shot out of the air," he finished lamely.

If Riddick had noticed Jazz's hesitation, he didn't comment. He lifted his feet up of fJazz's dash and sat up as the hovercar slowed to a halt. "It was you, right?" Jazz said as the two organics dismounted. He transformed back to his root mode and gestured to the gap in the cliff-face. "You uncovered the Ark."

Riddick glanced at his canine companion who was now sniffing and investigating the dish protruding out of the hole. There were several cylindrical objects that he didn't recognize sitting outside. He could see a trail of wires that headed back towards the ship, they were probably some sort of solar collector.  Riddick gave a nod towards the dog. "He found you. I uncovered you."

Jazz carefully climbed into the hole before glancing back at him. "And you never had seen anything like it," he stated with calculated guilelessness.

"No," Riddick answered simply as he followed the mech. He was curious about the ship, it was undeniable. Jazz was in the opinion that it wouldn't fly again but there had to be something in there that they could use to find a way off planet. There was always something useful, if one thought creatively.

Jazz fought to keep down any disappointment at Riddick's answer. He'd hoped...that the human had recognized the ship as Cybertronian. That would have meant that the war-front had remained somewhere in the vicinity of the human's local star system. Either his people had hidden their conflict far too well from the newly space faring race or they'd moved on completely after their brief foray at the human's home planet.

Well. He had his answer now. Technically, he had no further use for the human but Jazz found that he had no reason to dismiss Riddick. He was alone on this rock otherwise and he had no desire to for solitude when companionship could be found.

"Come on," he said. "I'll show you around this joint."


	4. A Shout Out To All Our Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read the notes at the end of chapter.

"They're not dead. Not really."  
  
Riddick wasn't startled by Jazz's voice, which is a good thing since he'd somehow managed to scale a med-berth to examine one offline frame. The Cybertronian leant against the door and watched the human calmly walk along the frame until he came to a stop above the spark chamber. Jazz's servos itched to grab the human and remove him from there but he did not want to frighten him. Jazz was also curious as to just what Riddick was up to.  
  
"That true or are you just telling yourself that?" Riddick called out as he stared down on the behemoth upon which he stood.  
  
Jazz deflated at the question. Behind his visor, his optics shuttered momentarily. "It's what I tell myself," he admitted honestly before moving into the room. His gaze swept over the offline frames before returning to the human. The man did not seem intimidated by the size of his current perch and Jazz wondered what sort of world the humans lived in now that they were not bothered by robots of titanic sizes. He'd tried asking Riddick it once.  
 _  
"Don't know," the human had grunted, skinning his latest kill by the base of the cliff. "Why?"  
  
Jazz had looked up from the solar convertor he'd been checking. "Just curious, you know? We don't usually go back. Mainly because there was nothing left to go back to. Been fighting a war for longer than your species has existed and I can tell you, organic species never really last long after they got involved."  
  
Riddick had made no reply to that, as Jazz was getting used to. So Jazz decided to fill in the conversation himself. "We didn't stay for very long," Jazz reminisced. "Left Earth almost as soon as we got there. A shame because it had so much culture that I wanted to learn about. But even though it was quick, by the time we left, your people had learnt how to kill mine. It’s the nature of our war everywhere we go."  
  
Depressed by the turn the conversation had taken, Jazz had focused on Riddick again. "So, how does a human wind up not knowing anything about normal human life?"  
  
Riddick had paused in his skinning. He considered his answer for several minutes before speaking up, perhaps due to Jazz's own willingness to share his experiences. "Spent most of my life in the penal system. Ain't got no idea what normal law abiding citizens do with themselves."  
  
Jazz had nodded, like he was expecting that answer. It did explain much about what he'd observed about the human. "Prison, huh? What were you in for?"  
  
"A whole bunch of things," Riddick had answered coolly. He'd stared straight up at Jazz defiantly. "Murder, mostly." _  
  
Jazz...hadn't known what to make of that. He was in no position to judge or claim the higher ground, he'd killed plenty of his own kind over the course of the war. Oh, you could dress it up and claim to be on the side of good but murder was still murder. Riddick hadn't been willing to talk anymore after that so Jazz didn't know what had motivated the human to commit such a crime. He'd wondered if Riddick had a military background, he'd shown a keen understanding of military tactics when Jazz had volunteered a few war stories.  
  
From what Jazz had been able to work out, it had been roughly five hundred Earth planetary cycles since the Cybertron war had come near the planet. He wondered how much the species had changed in that time, it was a short amount of time for a Cybertronian but it was long for the species. They were one of the rare few that had come out of their encounter with Cybertronians relatively unscathed.  
  
The mech's attention returned to the present. "Can't tell huh?" Riddick crouched down and placed his hand down on the metal beneath him. "Echoes," he murmured under his breath to himself. His hand slid up the smooth plate before he pulled back.  
  
Jazz quirked his helm curiously and move closer. "Whatcha doing there?"  
  
Riddick straightened slowly before looking up at the Cybertronian. His eyes zeroed in on the mech's spark chamber. "Interesting," he commented enigmatically.  
  
"What?" Jazz peered down at himself, trying to figure out what had caught Riddick's attention. While he was distracted, Riddick dismounted from the large frame, then wandered up to the edge of the med-berth. "Hey!" Jazz's helm snapped up to see the human perched precariously close to the edge. "Lemme-"  
  
Riddick swung himself down, catching hold on a trailing wire plugged into the berth to break his fall. He released it and caught another one before dropping to the ground. He then calmly began to head to the door.  
  
Jazz backpeddled after him as he tried to calm his suddenly racing spark. "You could have asked for help," he said, caught between annoyance and concern. "Instead of scaring a few vorns off my life."  
  
The human slunk off with a wave of dismissal and not another word. Jazz reluctantly recognised that their interactions were done for the orn. It was an odd existence, Jazz spent most of his time repairing the Ark. Riddick on the other servo drifted in and out as he pleased. He went hunting when on the outside, dragging his kills back to the Ark to store in a cyro unit that Jazz had managed to get running again. When he wasn't outside, he was exploring the Ark. Jazz tended to keep an optic out on him through the Ark's computer system but the human so far had not done anything that called for alarm.  
  
This orn's venture into the medbay had surprised Jazz. He'd stopped in the midst of a welding job and had come all the way down to check on Riddick in person. The human's wandering had been harmless so far but Jazz's comrades were offline and defenseless. Riddick hadn't done anything to them, the Ark had recorded any wrong doing and Jazz's own scans showed nothing was amiss. But still...  
  
Jazz had not forgotten how Riddick's immediate reaction to perceived weakness was a knife at Jazz's internal machinery. It hadn't escaped his notice that the human had already upgraded his weaponry using broken scraps of metal found laying around the Ark. Riddick could actually do some serious damage to an unaware frame with them. The human was highly intelligent, cunning and unpredictable. Jazz liked to think that they had some sort of mutual respect for each other but he remained wary of Riddick's motivations which he could not get a handle on.  
  
He didn't doubt that something had occurred just now. But what exactly he could not tell. Had Riddick identified a weak point by examining the offline frames of Jazz's friends and comrades? It was tempting to track the human down and demand answers but that would damage their cautious acquaintance. For now, all Jazz could do was keep a closer watch over the human.  
  
With an annoyed exvent, Jazz accessed the ship's computer and programmed it to block access the medbay. After an astrosecond of contemplation, he added several more sections of the Ark to the list.  
  
Back to welding it was.  
  
  
 _Echoes._  
  
Riddick moved down the vent slowly. He was on the hunt, tracking something that lingered only on the edges of his awareness. Over the past few weeks, he'd made himself at home in the great big ship. It afforded him a measure of protection he couldn't get out on the plains and a few modern comforts that he hadn't had for a while.  
  
He'd kept out of the robot's way as much as possible. In the meanwhile, he studied the ship, learning as much as he could about it.  
  
And while he explored, he searched for _it_. The life pulse from before. It was still there, teasing at the edge of Riddick's mind with its brilliant energy. He did not know what it was but he felt compelled to seek it ou. He could tell it did not emanate from Jazz and his latest investigation into what passed for a medical centre on the ship had revealed that it did not come from the half-dead robots inside.  
  
They were just...echoes.  
  
Reflections.  
  
Riddick's silver eyes gleamed in the near darkness. There was barely any lighting reflected down the narrow passageway but he didn't need it. That presence pulsed in his mind and led him on.  
  
Finally, he found a grate that opened up to a much larger room. Thanks to the difference in scale for the architecture, Riddick easily slipped through the metal bars. He paused for a moment, taking in his surroundings. There were massive alien crates stacked upon each other. Cargo, supplies or something, he must be in the main cargo bay. And, close nearby, that pulse beckoned him onwards.  
  
Quietly, Riddick treaded out across the room. His path weaved between the great stacks and lead him to a small alcove. There, hidden away was a large metal box.  
It looked quite impenetrable; thick, hard grey metal with no visible lock. Riddick studied it for only a moment before the presence bearing down on his mind became too much. It was like bright light exploding through his brain, he felt half-blind even though his vision was unaffected by it. He stumbled forward with a groan, it was like his mind was caught in a tight grip and he couldn't escape.  
  
Vaguely, he was aware that underneath his own skin, he was glowing bright blue in response. He had half a moment to think, _for fuck's sake, course, it was because he was Furyan._ Then he collapsed forward, his arms outstretched to break his fall.  
  
As he went down, his right hand smacked against the outside of the box. Somehow, above the roaring in his ears and from his prone position on the floor, he managed to hear the mechanical sound of transformation, of gears turning and smooth metal shifting.  
  
With effort, he managed to raise his head. His eyelids half open and with him barely conscious, Riddick watched as the box opened up, offering the treasure it hid inside to the outside world.  
  
He had a moment to take in the second box placed inside, elegant and engraved with glowing runes. The runes brightened as he watched.  
  
Then, the world exploded with light and it was almost with relief that Riddick finally blacked out.  
  
  
 _Life form detected in cargo hold._

  
Jazz ignored the ping from the ship's computer for approximately five whole astroseconds. He concentrated on the wires in front of him, trying to figure out where they were supposed to be connected when he was struck by the realisation that-  
  
"Wait, what?" he demanded, completely startled. He dropped the wires he was holding, then banged his helm hard as he scrabbled to his pedes. He pinged the Ark to repeat the message.  
  
 _Life form detected in cargo hold._  
  
Jazz actually stalled at that. The cargo- Riddick was inside the cargo hold? Jazz reviewed the Ark's logs as he folded up into his alt-form before hurtling down the hallway. The human had left the ship early that morning but Jazz could not recall the Ark registering his return. It shouldn't have been possible that Riddick had found a way around inside, it was one of the sections that Jazz had locked specifically to prevent entry.  
  
The mech quickly navigated through the Ark to the cargo hold. He shot into the bay and around the crates of freight before returning to his root mode in one smooth motion. His momentum carried him forward, to the little alcove in which it was hidden…  
  
Jazz arrived just in time to watch the fragging shielded lockbox open up at the touch of the human's hand. He stalled at that, he really did, as his processor reeled and tried to understand how the slag the safe had opened without the required codes. Then, it exposed the very object that had caused planets to be razed to dust as the mere word of its presence had brought Cybertron's war to different star systems.  
  
The Allspark.  
  
The glow emanating from it brightened before Jazz's optics. He realized what was about to happen far too late, as he lunged forward to yank the human back, the cube surged with a massive build-up of energy which discharged as a violent pulse of light and sheer pressure. Jazz ignored it as it washed over him, charging his frame with crackling energy, and picked Riddick up. The human was glowing a faint blue, something Jazz was certain he'd been doing before the Allspark had gone off.  
  
What the frag-  
  
The readings he could detect from the human did not match anything he had on record. Jazz's optics widened in confusion behind his visor before his battle programming kicked in and he evaluated the situation he was in. The Allspark had been activated, sending a surge of energy that any Cybertronian in the nearby star system couldn't fail to pick up on. Jazz pinged the Ark's system to check his estimations and he cursed to have them confirmed. He dug deep into his processor and found the access code he needed firewalled away. Jazz spiralled open a wrist port and pulled out a cable that he quickly connected to the lockbox. It took a while to reset the programming then the lockbox closed up and concealed the Allspark again. It vanished from his sensors and Jazz exvented quietly with relief.  
  
The situation still wasn't good, he had no idea if anyone had picked up the surge but he decided that he wasn't going to rely on the blind hope that no one had. His pedes carried him towards the med-bay, he needed to figure out what was wrong with Riddick then he'd barricade the med-bay and disable access to it. If the Decepticons found the Ark, he didn’t want to worry about hostages during a firefight. Just as he entered the med-bay, Riddick stirred within his servos.  
  
"What-?" the human was instantly alert and glaring up at Jazz from under his eyelids. Jazz was startled to note the silver colour of his eyes, he'd not seen them before and the colour was one he'd never encountered before on a human. Riddick reached up and pulled his goggles down to protect his eyes. "Hell is going on?"  
  
"You tell me," Jazz glared back. "You're the one who is blue and activated the Allspark. Good fragging job on that."  
  
"The what?" Riddick glanced down at his hands and confirmed that yes, he was still glowing. "That the box that's been driving me crazy?"  
  
Jazz stopped and brought Riddick right up in front of his face. "It's been _what?_ " he demanded angrily.  
  
Riddick's lips tightened mulishly but Jazz had decided that this was the time for answers and not the human's sheer stubbornness. "No. Don't give me that slag," Jazz snapped. "We're in trouble . You activated the Allspark and it sent out a pulse that could be detected from anywhere in this quadrant of space. If any of my enemies are nearby, they will be coming straight here to kill us and steal the Allspark. You owe me some answers. What the slag are you and how did you know about the Allspark?"  
  
The human frowned at him but relented. "I'm Furyan," he spat bitterly. "For all the good that it does you. I don't know what the fuck it means, only that my people were slaughtered in a genocide just after I was born. I'm stronger than a human, more durable and yeah, sometimes, my skin turns blue. Your cube thing? Whenever I've been near the ship, I've been able to feel it, there on the edge of my mind. That's all. Didn't know it was some sort of death beacon or I wouldn't have touched it. Could have helped if _someone_ had warned me about it."  
  
Jazz placed the human up on a bench in the medbay. "And jeopardize my mission? Slag no. Now, let me get this straight, you're some sub-species of human that can oh so conveniently sense the Allspark simply through proximity. Even though it was sealed in a lockbox specifically designed to block out every single signal it could send off."  
  
Riddick folded his arms and glared at Jazz. The worrying thing was that the mech couldn't detect the usual indicators that would tell him the human was lying. Riddick's readings were all over the place though the blue light was fading from his skin. "I told you what I know. I didn't know anything about your glow cube."  
  
"The Allspark," Jazz corrected automatically as he tried to get all the facts together.  
  
"Whatever. Why is the glow cube so damn important?"  
  
Jazz almost refused to tell him but then considered that at this point, informing Riddick could hardly make the situation worse. "Oh, it's just the source of all life for my home planet. No biggie. The Decepticons will probably just use it to try and conquer the galaxy by creating an army of brainwashed soldiers under their command. Again, no slagging biggie."  
  
Riddick looked taken aback and whilst Jazz would ordinarily be proud to have broken his cool, he could not ignore the gravity of the situation. "Why the fuck is it here then?"  
  
The mech exvented. "Long story. Our civilization broke down in civil war. Then the Decepticons made a play for control it so my faction, the Autobots decided to launch it through a wormhole so that no one could use it." Jazz grimaced in remembrance. "It would be abhorrent to use it to produce mechs solely for battle but it was too dangerous to keep on Cybertron with the Cons gunning for it. Course, the Decepticons went after it and we realized we'd have to go after them to keep them from regaining control over it. It's been kicked all over the galaxy after it was rediscovered, we've been trying to keep it out of Decepticon servos whilst they keep trying to drag it back to their high command. The last mission I was on, we retrieved it from a Con patrol but we were pursued. Had another ship with us when we were shot down, they were a decoy. They must have lead the patrol away but were unable to return. Don't know why no one ever came, maybe the decoys took out the patrol but were killed on the way back to Autobot command. It's not a far-fetched possibility. Anyway, the point is that everything was fine when it was in the lockbox and now things are not fine _at all._ "  
  
The human unfolded his arms. "So, what are you going to do now?"  
  
Jazz grimaced unhappily. "I'm going to see what I can do to convert the Ark into a total death trap in case of intruders. You, on the other hand, I don't know what I'm going to do with. If you stay here and the Decepticons come, you are probably going to get killed." Jazz really didn't know what to do with the human. If what he'd said was true, then Jazz really couldn't blame him for what had happened. There was simply no way Jazz would have informed Riddick about what was in the cargo hold, that was information he would have taken to the Well without hesitation. And he didn't know what else the human could be, a Pretender carrying out an incredibly elaborate plot to get at the Allspark? Jazz entertained the notion for several astroseconds until the sheer lunacy of such a plot deterred him. Jazz was pretty certain he was competent enough to tell the difference between a real organic and a Pretender shell.  
  
Maybe there was something to Riddick's words, the Allspark had been lost on Earth for a while and there had been humans exposed to it. Perhaps the effects had taken several generations to manifest, he'd never seen an organic with anything that resembled the blue glow of Riddick's veins.  
  
"Well, it's not like I don't know how to survive out there," Riddick pointed out.  
  
Jazz was tempted to demand that the human remained to fix the mess he'd caused. Then the reality of the situation caught up with him, if Riddick remained on ship then it was another life that Jazz would feel compelled to defend. "Yeah," he agreed distantly as his processor began to evaluate the resources he had available to him. "You do that."  
  
He couldn't interpret the look Riddick gave him. Then, the human climbed down from the table and Jazz was left alone in the med-bay.  
  
"Well mechs," Jazz murmured quietly. "I'm open to any suggestions. Sure could use some help right about now."  
  
There was no answer from the long offline frames, all he got was the quiet hum of the life support machines. Jazz exvented slowly at his own foolishness then he got his processor into gear and decided that getting the long range sensors fully functional would be his first priority.  
  
As he left, his processor was so occupied with calculations on how to best defend the Ark that he failed to notice one small human hidden beside the door.  
  
Riddick slipped back in and climbed his way back up to an offline frame. His hands curled round a wicked set of knives he'd made from discarded scrap metal from the Ark. He clambered up onto the mech in front of him then set out to explore. If there was a fight coming, then he had no intention of being unprepared for it.  
  
He had some studying that he needed to do.

  
  
Far away from one isolated rock planet, a pair of red optics shuttered in disbelief as a mech picked up a long forgotten signal. He ordered his ship to trace the origin of the energy pulse then sent a message to his commanding officers before setting off after it.  
  
The Allspark had been found again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I get asked, no, this is not going to be descend into Allspark!Riddick or Autobot!Riddick. The way I see it, the Allspark is a glowy mystical plot cube. Riddick is an Alpha Furyan, with mystical and glowy plot properties. They have a connection based on those similarities only. The Allspark surge was just its way of saying hello.  
> It could be possible that Furyans were descended from humans that were exposed to Allspark radiation a lot and therefore carried mutations that hadn't manifested until they were on Furya. In which case, the environmental conditions could have selected for the mutations. But really, I have absolutely no intentions to change Riddick from what he is.


End file.
